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Friday, February 27, 2015

I mentioned earlier that I had signed up for another mini swap on Instagram - this one was rainbow-themed, so I just couldn't resist. But true to form, my partner's favorite colors and preferred palettes were quite different from my own. Where I tend towards bright and bold, she favors earth tones - brown, green, orange.

Hm.

The interesting part about a swap is trying to balance the theme of the swap with your partner's favorite fabrics, colors, and quilting/sewing styles. She didn't have any favorite fabric lines or designers listed but she remarked that she preferred minimalist designs and applique.

For applique with a modern and minimal feel, I thought the logical choice was something from Alison Glass Applique. After going through the book cover to cover, I was drawn most to her Medallion pattern. In the book this is made into a cushion cover but it really lends itself to a mini perfectly.

With a design in mind, I turned to colors. You would think that a rainbow swap wouldn't require a lot of thought in the color department, but with her preference for more natural tones, I wanted a palatte that was rainbow with earthy roots.

Perfect!

Aside from the brown background, the fabric pull for this came strictly from my scrap bins. Perhaps I overpulled just a bit...but it's good to have choices, right?

Once I narrowed down the choices, it was on to tracing out shapes on Wonder Under and playing around until I got the design just right.

For quilting, I did a small blanket stitch around the appliqued shapes with diagonal straight lines through the background. The contrast in texture around the applique really made me happy!

So here it is in all it's glory during one of the past month's snowstorms. Even though it's a little out of my ordinary choices, I really like it and would be more than happy if it stayed here with me. But it's about to ship off to it's new home and I hope that my partner loves it as much as I do!